


October is the Cruelest Month

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:19:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21540238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDNh2BPE4Qk&list=FLJ6ISk24EqXI-4v-825fAmw&index=8I just want to see a fic in companion to this music video. It doesn’t have to fit with the actual lyrics of the song, I just want something with that sort of creepy, yet tempting feel and Pitch being the dark of Jack’s own imagination."The song the OP wanted a fic for is “Dark in my Imagination”. I’m not really sure this fits the song. It’s Jack trying to come to terms that he shares October with Pitch (or does he?).The attraction is unrequited and kind of unhealthy. Blackice the gretchensinister way.
Relationships: Jack Frost/Pitch Black
Kudos: 7
Collections: Blackice Short Fics





	October is the Cruelest Month

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 7/27/2013.

October is the cruelest month.  
  
The cool winds wake his mind as red and gold leaves swirl across the world like sparks, as the glinting sparks from bonfires float up to the moon looking like dreamsand, as the nights for dreaming get longer and the shadows in the golden afternoons arrive earlier, settling into quiet spaces like patient cats before growing with the night and roaming through neighborhoods, bringing careless chill with them.   
  
It is a month when the heat no longer oppresses, when friendships tentatively formed at the beginning of the school year are beginning to solidify, after the shock of homework following summer and before the press of final projects. It is a month of candy and stolen apples and hayrides and colorful costumed play. It is, as Ray Bradbury wrote, “a rare month for boys.” It should be Jack’s month entirely.  
  
But as the yellowed Hunter’s Moon stares down wide-eyed through wind-whipped nights, Jack knows it is not his month at all. Or at least, not his alone. For it is in this month, of all months, that laughter falls seamlessly into screams, and screams rise giddily into laughter. The fun of exploring the slowly undressing woods is not only in climbing trees or skipping stones in the sluggish stream or kicking up the rich burnt-but-not-burnt smell of thick-fallen leaves, but in the imagined possibility that a werewolf or a chainsaw-wielding maniac might be found in the adult-forgotten places.   
  
The candy apples are sweeter when one imagines there might be razor blades at their centers.  
  
No, this is not Jack’s month. This is Pitch’s month, and every year as it arrives with the faint smell of smoke and nerves winding tighter, with breath coming quicker and beginning to steam, with the livening of spirits as the Earth settles down into deathlike slumber in a blaze of glory, Jack swears he can see Pitch’s shadow everywhere. Wherever he looks, the darkness is not settled. It smiles at him, it rubs its hands along his back, it laughs into the silence of three A.M., it follows his work and undoes it, it follows his work and makes it better, taunting him with a demonstration of long practice.  
  
Yet Jack is never sure that he is really seeing Pitch at all. If he was not there, would Jack imagine him? Yes, he would. Maybe he already is. Perhaps the familiar shadows and the playful darkness are his, and Pitch has not returned to the world at all. After all, it is October, and there are certain expectations of fun Jack must fulfill.  
  
Is Pitch there? Does he mean to follow Jack? Is Jack calling for Pitch? Is Jack acting for Pitch? Some of these questions he does not know the answer to. Others he dare not answer. What mask is he wearing? What mask is _he_ wearing?   
  
He cannot separate Fear from Fun, and he cannot tell his dreams from his nightmares. It is maddening. It is sickening. It is exciting. He confides in Sandy, because he does not understand, and cannot keep silent. Yet all the dreamweaver tells him is:  
  
October is the cruelest month. Be glad it is only a month. Fear and Fun mingle for a little while, but Dreams and Nightmares? Always.  
  
Envy of cruel years begins to seep up into Jack’s mind like cold mud. It does not leave with October. It may not leave ever.  
  
And the shadows laugh.


End file.
